The invention relates generally to communications systems and particularly communications systems where a listener concurrently receives information from more than one audio source.
Many situations require real-time transfer of information from an announcer or other source to a listener. Examples include a floor director on a set giving instructions to a studio director, lighting director, cameraman, or so forth, who is concurrently listening to a stage performance, rescue equipment operators who are listening to simultaneous reports from the field, a group of motorcyclists talking to each other through a local radio system, or a pilot listening to air traffic control (“ATC”) and a continuous broadcast of weather information while approaching an airport to land.
Signals from the several sources are typically simply summed at a node and provided to a headphone, for example. It can sound like one source seems to be “talking over” the second source, garbling information from one or both of the sources. This can result in the loss of important information, and/or can increase the attention required of the listener, raising his stress level and distracting him from other important tasks, such as looking for other aircraft.
Therefore, it is desirable to provide a system and method for listening to several sources of audio information simultaneously that enhances the comprehension of the listener.